Sunday, September 9, 2012

“Will Standards Save Public Education?” « Deborah Meier on Education

“Will Standards Save Public Education?” « Deborah Meier on Education:




When Books Were..Over My Head.

I still get publishers’ materials about the latest education books. And I can’t sop myself from looking–and alas, getting discouraged. Heinemann! I used to love-ya. Trust Heinemann…and implement th Como Core with confidence.” I hate the idea of “implementing” books. One book “Explicitly links instruction to the standards for nonfiction.” We’re moving away, incidentally, from fiction. Some of these may be great…well, good…well, as good as they can be, given…that you’d never pick any of them up for a good read.
I browse in Rogers Bookstore–my neighborhood (Hillsdale) used-bok barn as often as I can. I used to go there weekly to bring a box back to school–especially beautiful–yes physically. These were books that were too expensive to buy but giae the young a literal feel for what we now call “hard copy”. Many of the books I brought to school were over the kids heads. But I had sent my youth browsing amongst books (and conversations) that were over my head. It’s the way little children learn to talk, build a vocabulary, make sense of their world–by



“Will Standards Save Public Education?”

I just reread a book I edited (foreword by Kozol–thanks, Jonathan) in 2000! While it’s entitled “Will Standards Save Public Education” I think it is actually about the Common Core debate more than what we used to call “standards”. Of course. they overlap. But I found, on rereading, that I agree with myself, and found the respondents interesting too: Ayers, Gary Nash, Thermstrom, Sizer… My piece is called Educating a Democracy. So, ‘m still worrying about the same thing. But, believe it’s still available via Beacon, Amazon, your local bookstore if it exists, et al.
Diane, if you get around to it–read an comment. Is this an area of our agreement or disagreement, or one o those overlaps: agre and disagree.